Welcome Alison King to her new role as the Director of the Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services



The Long Beach Housing Authority is pleased to announce that its former Executive Deputy Director and Bureau Manager has been promoted to serve as the Director of the Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services.

City Manager Tom Modica has appointed Alison King as the new Director for the Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services (Health Department). With over five years of experience as a public health administrator and more than two decades in human services, Ms. King brings a wealth of expertise to her new role. She has acted as the Interim Director for the Health Department since October 2023.

Ms. King's career with the City of Long Beach began in 2005 within the Housing Authority, a bureau under the Health Department. She progressed through various leadership roles before being appointed Bureau Manager in 2016. In this capacity, she managed a $110 million budget to support rental housing assistance for over 7,000 low-income families in the area. Her tenure as Bureau Manager was marked by significant achievements in enhancing the city's affordable housing inventory, including the allocation of over 900 housing vouchers, the awarding of 10 affordable housing development contracts for 522 project-based voucher units, and securing agreements for nine additional developments projected to add over 400 new units in the coming year. Furthermore, she successfully led the Emergency Housing Voucher program to commit all 582 eligible voucher recipients to permanent housing early in 2023, achieving full program lease-up for the first time since 2021. Under her guidance in 2023, Long Beach was chosen as one of eight Continuum of Care communities in California to receive Stability Housing Vouchers, further extending support to individuals facing or at risk of homelessness. Ms. King's leadership has consistently earned the Housing Authority high-performance designations from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In the interim, until a permanent Bureau Manager for the Housing Authority is appointed, Anna Topolewski, the current Housing Programs Operations Officer, will serve in an acting capacity.